Urgenda v. the Netherlands
The first supreme court ruling requiring a state to cut its emissions, upheld in December 2019 on human rights grounds.
A climate target set by a government is in principle a political choice that courts do not review. The Urgenda case opened a breach: a foundation argued that the Dutch target was too weak relative to what science deemed necessary, and that this weakness violated the right to life and the right to respect for private life under the European Convention on Human Rights. All three levels of court agreed and imposed a numerical floor. The decision served as a model for dozens of claims, including Milieudefensie against Shell, and showed that transition risk can arise from a judgment as much as from a statute. For exposed sectors, it made a sudden acceleration of mandated reductions more likely.
Filed in 2015, the action concluded on December 20, 2019: the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld the state's obligation to cut emissions by at least 25% in 2020 against 1990, beyond the 20% that followed from EU law, on the basis of Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention.
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